PointsBet Review

PointsBet is an online sportsbook that brings a unique approach to sports betting to the United States. What this betting site offers is completely unlike anything we’ve seen before in the US, so we present this PointsBet review to explain how it works and fill you in on what to expect.

PointsBet

PointsBet

PointsBet is an online betting site that takes a different approach to sports betting. In addition to offering traditional sports wagers, PointsBet also offers a form of spread betting in which "the more you're right, the more you win."

Pros

Offers a unique form of sports spread betting

Also offers traditional wagers

Licensed in New Jersey

Cons

Can lose more than original wager

Overall Rating

Sports Covered

Variety of Bet Types Offered

Ease of Use

Reputation

PointsBet Info

To be clear, PointsBet also offers regular sports betting in addition to its unique form of spread betting. However, it is the spread betting format in particular that has caught our attention. What makes spread betting unique is that your payouts vary based on how right you are. We’ll get into the nuts and bolts below, but the basic idea is that you’re betting on points (hence the name) and getting paid more for being more right.

This new form of betting has the added benefit of keeping every game interesting down to the very end. Watching your team run away with the lead, for example, becomes much more exciting when you know you stand to gain money for every additional point by which they increase their lead.

Regular sports betting is also offered for the major sports leagues of the world. PointsBet said prior to its launch that it will offer more markets than “any other sports bookmaker in the world” for the major US leagues, and so far, the sportsbook seems to be on the right track.

PointsBet announced its plan to launch online and in-person betting in New Jersey by the end of 2018 in partnership with Meadowlands Racetrack in East Rutherford. PointsBet did indeed launch in December of 2018 and now serves customers from New Jersey.

As far as other states go, PointsBet has made it clear it has big plans for the US market as a whole. To that end, PointsBet has also secured a deal with Tioga Downs Casino Resort in anticipation of New York legalizing online sports betting. It will be no surprise to see additional announcements of that sort in other states as legal sports betting spreads.

The launch of PointsBet in the United States was highly anticipated due to the company already being active for over a year in Australia. The firm is still licensed for online betting in Australia, but PointsBet USA CEO Johnny Aitken told iGaming Business this back in mid-2018:

“Our focus from day one has always been on the US, with Australia very much a proof of concept for us to get our Points Betting and sportsbook capabilities tuned up to execute at an optimal level when the market here finally opened.”

PointsBet Bonuses

PointsBet launched in the United States with a three-part welcome bonus that includes a free bet just for signing up and then two more risk free bets worth up to $1,000 after you place your first two wagers.

Use the bonus code WELCOMEPP2 to claim this offer when signing up for your PointsBet account.

$50 No-Deposit Bonus

First up, all new customers can claim a $50 bonus bet in return for signing up. No deposit is necessary – just sign up for an account and PointsBet will give you $50 that you can use to place wagers before depositing your own money. The $50 bonus bet cannot be withdrawn, but all winnings from the wager are yours to keep.

Key terms: Your bonus bet must be used within seven days of it being credited to your account. You can use it by logging in to your account and browsing the various betting markets. Add a wager to your betting slip and then select the “bonus bet” check box on your betting slip to ensure the bonus is used to place that wager. Additionally, all bonus bets must be used on markets with odds of 1.5 (-200) or greater.

$1,000 in Risk Free Bets

Secondly, PointsBet offers two more risk-free bets that provide a chance to try two different types of wagers while eliminating the risk of a loss on your first wager of each type.

$500 PointsBetting Offer: This bonus is particularly attractive because it allows you to try the unique type of betting offered by PointsBet with a guarantee to refund your first wager with up to $500 in bonus bets if things don’t go your way.

All you need to do is place your first PointsBetting wager (see below for an explanation of how these wagers work). If it loses, PointsBet will refund the amount of your loss with up to $500 in bonus bets.

Key terms: The PointsBetting bonus offer does not apply if you use a stop-loss setting in your wager. Some markets enforce a stop-loss and are therefore not eligible, so make sure you find a market that does not come with a stop-loss feature. Additionally, make sure to size your wager accordingly such that the maximum loss is $500 or less in order to take full advantage of this offer.

Also keep in mind that the refund is issued in the form of bonus bets only. This means you can’t deposit your grocery money (something you shouldn’t do anyways) and expect to just cash it back out if your first wager is a loser. Bonus bets cannot be withdrawn; they can only be used to place additional wagers.

$500 Fixed Odds Offer: PointsBet offers a similar refund offer for customers placing their first fixed-odds wager (which the standard type of sports bet we’ve seen in Vegas for decades now). Just place your first regular sports wagers and PointsBet will refund it with up to $500 in bonus bets if it loses.

Key terms: Again, remember the refund is issued as bonus bets only, not as withdrawable cash. Also note that no bonus refunds are issued for wagers that win, that are voided or that result in a push (which would give you a refund even without this bonus).

Other PointsBet Promotions

PointsBet.com has come out with a long-running list of promotions since its big debut in the USA. You can log in to your account or visit the PointsBet website often to see the latest promotions.

The promotional offerings change on a regular basis, but below are a few examples of promotions the sportsbook has offered in the past. Some of these are bound to be out of date by the time you read this page, but these should serve as an example of the types of promotions PointsBet tends to offer.

No Juice NFL Lines: PointsBet came out with this awesome promotion during last year’s NFL season which completely eliminated the juice on all NFL point spreads. This means that rather than betting on, say, the Patriots at +3 -110, you could get the Patriots for +3 +100. In other words, you would have stood to win more money on average on your NFL spreads by doing business with PointsBet than with any other betting site last year.

Random Booster Odds: One type of promotion PointsBet offers fairly frequently is an odds-boost on random wagers every day. If a certain wager was paying +220 the day before, PointsBet might offer +300 during the promotion. Check out the promotions tab in your account every day for a list of boosted bets.

Early Payouts: PointsBet sometimes comes out with early payout offers that pay your pre-game wagers instantly if your side gets ahead by a certain number of points. For example, PointsBet recently offered instant payouts on your pre-game NHL and soccer moneylines the second your team got ahead by two goals.

Name Your Bet: This is more of a feature than a promotion, but you can tweet @PointsBetUSA with an idea for a wager you’d like, and they just might give your idea odds and take wagers on it. For example, you might send a Tweet to PointsBet asking for odds on the Cowboys to win by a field goal in overtime and they’ll consider pricing it up to make your custom bet idea a reality.

PointsBet Game Day Guarantee: Smart Money Welcome

If you’ve ever been limited from winning too much from other sportsbooks, you already know how frustrating it can be. It’s almost a compliment except for that fact that it can crush a great season when all of a sudden half the sportsbooks in town are limiting you to $5 or even $1 wagers just because you know what you’re doing.

It’s legal and quite common, but no less frustrating. It doesn’t have to be that way.

In April 2019, PointsBet announced the “Game Day Guarantee” to appeal specifically to the types of customers other betting sites don’t want. The idea behind Game Day Guarantee is simple: PointsBet will accept wagers as high as $10,000 on game day for all wagers on NBA, NHL and NFL games no matter how skilled you are.

Rewards Program

PointsBet USA features a straightforward rewards program in which your wagering activity earns points that can later be redeemed for bonus bets. First, points are earned for every wager placed at the PointsBet website or through the mobile app as follows:

Fixed odds wagering: Earn 1 Reward Point for every $5 wagered

Parlay wagers: Earn 1 Reward Point for every $1 wagered

PointsBetting wagers: 1 Reward Point for every $1 won or lost

After you’ve accumulated Rewards Points, you can log in to your account and visit the “rewards” tab to redeem them for free bets at a rate of $1.00 per 100 Reward Points. Redemptions are allowed at the following intervals:

Reward Points Redeemed

Bonus Bet Issued

250 points

$2.50

500 points

$5.00

2,500 points

$25.00

5,000 points

$50.00

10,000 points

$100.00

50,000 points

$500.00

100,000 points

$1,000.00

How PointsBet Works

The PointsBet.com approach to sports betting is hinted at in the name of the firm itself. While PointsBet does offer traditional wagers such as who will win games, its key point of differentiation among the many other online sportsbooks out there is that it offers a special type of spread betting with payouts that grow based on the number of points scored by your team, by how much your team covers the spread and so on.

To use PointsBet’s own words, the more you’re right, the more you win. Likewise, the more you’re wrong, the more you lose. It should be noted that you can set limits ahead of time so that you know your maximum risk and reward before you place a bet.

The concept is best explained with an example.

Let’s imagine the Golden State Warriors and Toronto Raptors are slated to play a game tonight and the total has been set at 230 points. You decide to take the over for $10 per point.

Using the handy betting slip at the PointsBet website, we can quickly see how much you stand to win or lose based on the game’s outcome.

Here are a few of the many possible outcomes that could occur with this wager:

If the game finishes with a total of 231 points, you win $10 ($10 per point x 1 point over the total).

If the game finishes with a total of 250 points, you win $200 ($10 per point x 20 points over the total)

If the game finishes with a total of 229 points, you lose $10

If the game finishes with a total of 210 points, you lose $200

Here’s a short preview video from PointsBet showing a different example using a quarterback’s total passing yards in an NFL game:

Spread betting is not limited just to totals, though. PointsBet also takes these types of wagers on point spreads with payouts determined by the amount your team covers the spread.

For instance, imagine an NFL game between the Cowboys and Redskins that has the Cowboys priced as -8.5 favorites. If you were to bet $10 per point on the Cowboys to win, you would stand to win $10 per point above the spread if the Cowboys win the game by 8.5 or more.

In this example, let’s say the Cowboys go on to win the game by two touchdowns. In that outcome, the Cowboys covered the spread by 5.5 points and you would be paid $55 on your original $10 wager. On the other hand, if the Cowboys fail to cover the spread or lose outright, you would lose $10 x the numbers of points by which the Cowboys missed the spread.

Setting Stop Losses

There are two ways to manage your risk when spread betting with PointsBet. One is to simply adjust how much you wager per point. Wagering $10 per point means every point for or against you is worth $10 – and that can add up quickly. Wagering $1 or less per point, on the other hand, helps keep things under control.

Additionally, the PointsBet platform offers a stop-loss feature for certain markets. You can use the stop-loss tool to put a cap on the most you can lose – at the cost of also putting a cap on the amount you can win. If you look again at the previous betting slip screenshot, you’ll notice a slider that allows you to adjust your maximum risk.

PointsBet Screenshots

Types of Bets Offered by PointsBet.com

PointsBet.com has a full wagering menu on offer that covers a range of both traditional and spread betting markets. The spread betting concept is applied to all sorts of different outcomes such as:

Spread bets on who will win the game

Point totals

Total passing yards for a specific quarterback

Running yards for a running back

How many seconds it will be before the first scoring play

The winning margin

Largest lead acquired by either team at any point during the game

Individual NBA player’s 3-point field goal percentage

These are just a few of the many examples we can already find on offer at PointsBet today. In addition to spread betting, PointsBet will also offer traditional markets including:

Money lines

Point spreads

Player props

Team props

Game props

Point totals

Regarding the PointsBet promise to offer more markets on US sports than any other sportsbook, that is starting to look like it may be the case already. In some of the higher-profile matchups, we have seen more than 200 individual betting options for a single game.

Sports Covered

Football

Basketball

Baseball

Hockey

MMA

Boxing

Golf

Tennis

Soccer

Aussie Rules

Cricket

Cycling

Darts

Motor Racing

Rugby Union

PointsBet Mobile App

The PointsBet mobile app is available for iOS / Android devices and can be downloaded from the App Store or by visiting PointsBet.com. We’ve been able to play with PointsBet on an iPhone and found the app to be sleek, responsive and intuitive.

It seems the people at PointsBet used their experience in the Australian market to work out all the kinks long ago and have no brought to us a refined mobile sportsbook in the US. Logging in to the app brings you straight to a list of featured betting markets and a navigation menu bar across the bottom that can be used to quickly switch between sports wagers, in-play betting, promotions and account management.

The full range of betting options offered at PointsBet.com is also offered through the mobile device. This includes a full range of standard pre-game wagers, PointsBetting markets and in-play betting.

One thing that has become clear in our time with the app is that PointsBet was not kidding when it said it planned to offer more markets than any other sportsbook in the USA. PointsBet mobile often has upwards of 250 individual markets for a single game alone.

Despite the vast selection of wagers, the mobile app is fairly intuitive. The front page only shows the most popular games happening soon, but you can select the “sports” option from the bottom menu to see the full list of sports. From there, tap the sport you’re interested in to be taken to that day’s games.

PointsBet Card: The PointsBet card basically functions like a prepaid debit card in that you can fund it online with your own credit or debit card and then have winnings credited back to your PointsBet Card. You can apply for the PointsBet Card online after logging in to your account and visiting the deposit screen. After applying, you can use a digital version of the PointsBet card at first to deposit while you wait for the actual card in the mail. Once you have a physical card, you’ll be able to use it anywhere Mastercard is accepted, including at ATMs.